


moments from a disappearing city

by flyingrat42



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22726168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingrat42/pseuds/flyingrat42
Summary: New York is a character in Watchmen as much as any other.  A selection of ephemera from a world past.(Written for the 2019/2020 Watchmen Wonderswap challenge.)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	1. Memorandum, April 27, 1981

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gisho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/gifts).



**MEMORANDUM**

Date: April 27, 1981

To: All Staff and Volunteers

From: Jacqueline Lim, Director, New-York Historical Society

Subject: A New, Bright Chapter Dawns for the NYHS

Friends,

First, let me say how grateful I have been for your support over the last few years. You are the most dedicated group of people I have ever worked with, and the Society’s financial straits have hit all of you so hard - but you’ve borne up with supreme resilience. You all love New York, and want to see its history not only preserved, but made available to everyone in this great city, not just the few professional researchers we can currently support.

That’s why I’m writing today to tell you that the dark days are coming to an end. The New-York Historical Society has been selected for the next wave of participating institutions for the Digital Alexandria Initiative, bringing with it the resources not only to reopen to the public and upgrade our facilities, but also to share our holdings with the world in a way much broader than we ever could have dreamed. 

DAI, as most of you know, is a personal project of Veidt Enterprises’ founder and CEO, Adrian Veidt. Named after the famed (and sadly lost) Library of Alexandria, this effort seeks to safeguard the shared artistic and historical legacy of humanity by bringing cutting-edge digital capture technologies to the world’s museums, galleries and archives - technology that won’t just enable us to preserve our collections, but to share them across disciplinary and national borders, enabling people to interact with our materials in entirely new ways. 

After the first participants were announced two months ago (the British Museum, the Uffizi, the Tate, the National Gallery of Art, and the Met), I heard quite a few of you expressing how much an opportunity like this would mean for NYHS. What I can tell you now is that shortly after that first announcement, I received a call from Mr. Veidt personally inviting NYHS to participate in the second wave, and offering full financial support to bring us back to a state where we can take full advantage of the opportunity. I very much apologize for not sharing this news before now, but it needed to wait until the details were finalized. You’ll be seeing a public announcement very soon. 

“Our” phase of Digital Alexandria will be very different from the first - all of the organizations involved are here in NYC, and include collections, museums, and archives of all types and sizes. (I can’t list them yet, but you’ll see them in the official announcement.) This has all been carefully thought out, and the idea is that working with such a variety of organizations in close proximity will enable the digital collections teams to collaborate and refine their methods more efficiently. Not to mention, we’ll be able to benefit from lessons they’re learning at the Met and elsewhere! 

So I am not exaggerating when I say that, going forward, all of you will be part of making history here in New York, not just preserving it. Mr. Veidt (who expressed how much he enjoyed visiting the Historical Society in his youth) asked me to pass along his personal appreciation for all the hard work that you’ve been doing keeping the lights on, and promises to stop by at his earliest convenience to tell you so in person. 

Later this week, I’ll be holding meetings with all departments, and with DAI project leaders, to discuss the details of what this will mean for our near- and long-term operating plans going forward. I appreciate your flexibility in advance, and I encourage you to share any thoughts, concerns or suggestions with me. My door is always open.

Thank you again for everything you do for us. 

To a new, bright future!

Jackie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the hyphen is a part of the name of the New-York Historical Society. And yes, they were going through dire financial straits in the 1970s and 80s, a time which is fortunately past, albeit because of Michael Bloomberg and others, not Adrian Veidt.


	2. Letter sent to Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri, August 8, 1985

August 8, 1985

Hey Alex,

How’s it going? I bet it seems like ages since Basic finished up. Hopefully they’re letting you off the leash a little more now, especially since you have a lot of sitting on your butt in the classroom to look forward to. (Seriously, Technical Engineer is a great gig, bro. As much as Angel and I tease you about playing with toy trucks, we’re proud of you.)

I know I just wrote last week but I had to tell you what happened at work the other day. You remember I’m tending bar at that fancy new place that’s actually inside Grand Central Station - the Campbell Apartment? It was some famous guy’s law office back in the 30’s and 40’s, right there off the balcony, and it’s decorated like an Italian Renaissance villa or some shit. I have to say, though, compared to some places I’ve worked, this one is actually classy - I’m making bank, and the management actually doesn’t suck for once. 

Anyway. It’s been pretty slow this week, and on Tuesday we had a few people in. I’m taking advantage of a slow moment to do some cleanup, prep, you know, just kind of listening to the conversation and keeping an ear out, like I do - when a hush falls over the room. I mean, these things ebb and flow, that’s normal, but this was one of those pregnant pauses. In some of the divier places I’ve worked it would have been a sign that a fight was about to pop off. So of course I look up, and I’m not expecting anything really to go down here - like I said, classy - and I see what’s caught everybody’s attention. 

_He’s_ there. Dr. Manhattan, the blue guy. He’s just walked into my bar, on an August evening in Grand Central Station, dressed in a perfectly normal looking black suit and - get this - holding a copy of Time Magazine. And there’s this woman with him, nice looking, and I realize that she’s _Silk Spectre_. You might not remember, but she was one of the mask crowd, back when I was your age. 

And he’s _glowing_ , like we saw on TV. The bar is pretty dark and cozy with lots of reds and browns and warm tones, so aside from the whole “literal superhero” thing, you couldn’t help but stare at him. Silk Spectre (I think her name is something like Lauren Jupiter?) notices, and leans up to say something in his ear, and he nods and literally _dims himself_ , like dialing down the light in Mami’s dining room, until the glow is just barely noticeable. Couldn’t believe it. 

Jennifer is waitressing and bless her, she doesn’t bat an eye and sets them up at one of the two-tops, at which point everybody takes the cue and at least tries to pretend they’re not checking out the literal superhuman sitting over there by the fireplace. And I go back to arranging olives - we’ve gotten enough high-rollers through this fancy place, what’s one more set, right? 

Before you ask, no, he didn’t drink anything, and no, I didn’t talk to them, either. Part of being a good bartender is knowing when you don’t need to talk. Silk Spectre ordered one of the house specialty cocktails (and no, it wasn’t a blue one), I mixed it up, Jennifer took it over, and that was that. They just sat for a while, talked, flipped through their Time magazine, and left. Good tippers, too. It was...in a strange way, kind of cozy, to have them there, just doing their thing. 

So, yeah, that was my Tuesday. Not a lot of point to it except that, out of all the times I’ve run into the high and mighty doing my time here in NYC, I think this is gonna be the one that sticks with me the most. 

All I can say is, I’m glad he’s on our side, and especially on yours, if/when you ever get out of the classroom and get deployed. 

Anyway! Hang in there, have fun, don’t do anything to draw the sergeants’ attention. I snuck some extra Mmmeltdowns into Mom’s care package, make sure to share them with your buddies. 

Love,

Raf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Campbell Apartment actually wasn't reopened as a bar until the late 90's, but hey, all of Watchmen is an AU. I highly recommend going.


End file.
